My first martial arts teacher told me, “you always have to be ready for a test.” I was in my 20’s and life was free and easy. I thought he simply meant I should always be ready to be tested for my next belt rank, it could happen anytime. In fact, my Black Belt test was a surprise. I walked into the dojo, changed into my uniform and began practicing as usual. Before I knew it, he was putting me through my paces in much more rigorous ways than the usual sweaty class rituals of throws and tumbles. In the midst of it all I realized, “this is my black belt test.”
I passed that test and this subtle and often undetected lesson has stayed with me throughout my life. I, like all of us, encounter multiple tests along our way. Sometimes every day has more than I can bear. Sometimes it seems years go by where life just ticks along in regular ways with no testing required. When they come, sometimes like with my black belt I recognize them as such, sometimes I do not. Sometimes I pass them, sometimes I do not.
You do not need me to spell out this metaphor for you. This is a test. This is our big test, likely the biggest one of our collective lifetime. No one told us it was coming now, but here we are, here it is. We are all on the mat having circumstances flung at us in unpredictable and unprecedented ways. There will be and are already multiple passes and fails along the way. When class is over, when the test is over, what will our rank be?
And more essentially what is our test right now? It is definitely different for each of us. For the health care workers, for the musicians, for the grocery store stockers, for the UPS drivers, for the politicians, for the tai chi teachers, for those already suffering from illness, abuse, loneliness, it is different. It is easy to feel we have no power to pass or even to fail or to even take this test. It is so far out of our training. What does pass or fail even mean right now?
It is not for me to define what this test is. What is mine to know is that while I recognize the part of my humanity that is freaked out, scared, and overwhelmed with anxiety, I also recognize those feelings as my examination. Do I want to live there? Are those the feelings I want to take into battle with me? No. Then, what does my training tell me? My training tells me, correct! I do not know what the future holds. My training actually reminds me I never did know. My training teaches me to not ignore my feelings and the circumstances, but to intentionally find ways to move with them. To look for options and possibilities within the current situation. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thought about this Chinese term: 危機, Crisis/Opportunity.
My training also tells me to keep my heart/mind and body flexible. To keep looking at both sides of the present moment coin. So, every day, I allow my humanity its yin and its yang. I feel my feelings, I pay attention to the circumstances, but I also keep moving. I keep sharing. And I intentionally look for beauty. I intentionally look for ways of supporting others. I intentionally allow other people’s generosity and love to support me. Is this my test? Yes, I believe it is.
When history is written about this time, what will our rank be? By doing what we can to support our own and others’ health and well-being, by simply connecting with each other, by staying or becoming kind, by committing to or going deeper into our practices of grounding and adaptability, perhaps we will at the very least stay on the mat. Perhaps if we breathe in and breathe out we will remember we are human and indeed, we may actually have all the skills we need to not only survive this test, but to even thrive from it, once the history of it is written.